Defines activity theory as a socio-cultural and socio-historical lens through which the interaction of human activity and consciousness within its relevant environmental context can be analyzed. Describes how activity theory can be used as a framework for analyzing activities and settings for the purpose of designing constructivist learning…

Indepth studies of micropolitics at the school level are presented in this book, which includes nine qualitative studies of school politics conducted by different researchers. Chapters 2 through 10 examine the formal and informal processes and structures that constitute everyday political life in the schools. The studies explore how individuals…

A study examined variation in code choice in the same speakers in two contrasting situations--interorganizational and intraorganizational bargaining. Naturalistic interactions between teams of teacher's union bargaining agents, role-playing teachers, and school board members in the two settings were coded, using measures of structural and lexical…

A study was conducted to examine the presence and composition of nonverbal cues exhibited in a spontaneous dyadic interaction and to investigate the assumption that cue variation is inconsequential to the effect of nonverbal behavior implicit in methods that aggregate cue incidence across interactions. Subjects, 110 college undergraduates, worked…

In a two-stage procedure to discover how children use television commercials in family group viewing situations, researchers first conducted thirty family interviews with as many family members present as possible; then they selected nine children's families for extended (three month) participant observation to study the formative aspects of each…

One hundred mother/child dyads were involved in a study to provide empirical evidence on parent/child interaction in grocery stores and on the contributions of Saturday morning television commercials to those interactions and to the purchase of candy and cereals. Data were collected in 15 supermarkets in two midwestern cities. First, the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 12 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: communication and perceptions of organizational climate; perceptions of communications between federal and local educational agencies; intraorganizational conflict…

Prompted by the need to develop improved tools for describing and assessing teachers' skills in teaching reading, a study was undertaken to examine the effectiveness of a system for classifying and tallying teacher-pupil verbal interaction during classroom instruction. Specifically, the study investigated the extent of agreement among college…

These materials will help the educator develop an awareness of nonverbal behavior, which is complimentary to and independent of the verbal realm, to give a complete picture of the classroom. The purpose of the manual is to enable the teacher to identify nonverbal components of behavior, including dimensions other than behavioral of the teacher's…

The Industrial Arts Interaction Analysis System was used to study teacher-student behavior in junior high school industrial arts classes. Twenty industrial arts teachers were observed on three different occasions and the interaction between the teacher and students was recorded by two independent observers. The findings indicated that there was a…

This inquiry was conducted to develop indigenous research methodology aimed at minimizing the gap between educational research and practice. The intent was not to produce a final or complete solution to the problem, but rather to suggest a procedure which would provide partial closure. Alternative methods, including various types of linkage…

This study explored the difference in intelligence among children from large families in relation to parent-child interaction patterns. The sample consisted of 56 children from large families living in Central West Virginia. The 56 children represented 20 families, all of which had five or more children, and were of similar economic circumstances.…

Fifty-six sailors individually participated in a lengthy interaction session, ostensibly with another sailor (an experimenter confederate). They were subjected to one of four reward/cost expectancies (Continuous Positive, Later Positive, Continuous Negative, and Later Negative). Social penetration processes studied were average time talked,…

The convergent validity between the following measures was investigated: use of accomplices, imaginary accomplices, feltboard, disguised questionnaire, and undisguised questionnaire. The first four measures yielded corresponding results. Subjects' awareness proved to be an important methodological consideration. Results were not affected by the…

Describes transactional analysis (TA) and how extension agents can use it to work more effectively with their clients. (EM)